Build what you dream
I love the message of this poem ...Mandela has died - a poem
Madiba has died.
Today I held my little boy on my lap as he cried, inconsolably.
Not for a man he’d ever met,
But for a story that made him safe and proud.
I also want to fold my arms around our young country and say
‘There, there.
Remember how much he loved you?
Don’t forget that he gave up his anger, his righteousness, his time, his life
because he believed in you that much.
Maybe you can love him back by believing too?
I know you’ll miss him, my angel.
He will leave a grand space.
An open space!
You can grow into it, you know.
Everything you have loved in your Tata
You have in yourself.
Don’t fight, children, there’s enough inheritance for everyone.
Here, you take some of his compassion – it’s valuable, and rare.
And you, did you like his humour?
Take! Take!
Take his listening, his forgiving, his inclusiveness.
The more you spend them, the more there will be.
Invest your inheritance and build what you dream.
It is more lonely for a name to stand apart
Than alongside millions.'
Today I held my little boy on my lap as he cried, inconsolably.
Not for a man he’d ever met,
But for a story that made him safe and proud.
I also want to fold my arms around our young country and say
‘There, there.
Remember how much he loved you?
Don’t forget that he gave up his anger, his righteousness, his time, his life
because he believed in you that much.
Maybe you can love him back by believing too?
I know you’ll miss him, my angel.
He will leave a grand space.
An open space!
You can grow into it, you know.
Everything you have loved in your Tata
You have in yourself.
Don’t fight, children, there’s enough inheritance for everyone.
Here, you take some of his compassion – it’s valuable, and rare.
And you, did you like his humour?
Take! Take!
Take his listening, his forgiving, his inclusiveness.
The more you spend them, the more there will be.
Invest your inheritance and build what you dream.
It is more lonely for a name to stand apart
Than alongside millions.'
Angela Deutschmann
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